Metroid: Resurrection
by Wolfemann
Summary: Samus Aran, one of the greatest bounty hunters in the galaxy, is finally released after the destruction of SR388, the space station she used to vaporize the planet, and the X parasites onboard. Unfortunately, an old foe from the past returns to be dealt
1. Coding

Metroid: Resurrection By: Jason Leisemann  
  
Disclaimer: Metroid, and all elements of the series, belong to Nintendo. I don't own them, I'm not saying they're mine, and I'm not making any money off of them, so hopefully a big company like Nintendo won't decide that a little guy like me needs to be sued, right?  
  
Warnings: R, Angst, M/F Sex/Relationships, Extreme Violence  
  
Summary: Samus Aran, one of the greatest bounty hunters in the galaxy, is finally released after the destruction of SR388, the space station she used to vaporize the planet, and the X parasites onboard. Unfortunately, an old foe from the past returns to be dealt with..  
  
Pairings: Samus Aran/Adam Malkovitch 


	2. Chapter 1: Reflections

~~~Chapter 1: Reflections~~~  
  
Once again, I'd saved the galaxy from a threat the rest of the Federation wasn't ready for. The X-Parasites were destroyed, along with the metroids, and nobody would ever know how close they'd come to being turned into slaves to the endless urge to destroy that drove the X.  
  
And, in return, I was sitting in a cell, waiting for the galactic leaders to figure out what the hell to do with me.  
  
The irony was almost palpable. If I had figured out a way to sharpen it, I could probably have cut my way out of the cell with it.  
  
Hell, if I'd *wanted* to, I could have just blown my way out. They'd disabled my weapon systems before locking me away in this cell, but the suit knew how to handle that. Rewire, reroute, override the blocks that had been put in place; it was a story I'd gone through countless times before.  
  
I just hadn't *felt* the process before. It was damned unnerving, feeling my body adapt itself to overcome the power dampeners and broken circuits the Federation had worked into my system after taking me into custody. Imagine your veins giving themselves bypasses, and you have a good idea of what it was like. Even if the suit wasn't really part of my body, I could feel it now. Feel its pain, the various subroutines that had run silently in the background before, everything. It had almost gotten me killed back on the Biosystems Laboratory; the pain that cut straight through the suit had done almost as much damage as if I'd been naked before the monsters that tried to tear me apart. Even without that, it was distracting, almost like being constantly aware of the beating of your heart, the rhythm of your breath.  
  
For the first time since I had learned to use it, I needed to get out of my suit. It had always been a comfort before, like an old friend, or a parent's embrace. But now. I was keenly aware that I was living in my coffin. Even after absorbing the SA-X, and restoring the suit's functions, they couldn't get it off of me. I reached up and tried to fit my fingers under the seal of my helmet; the automatic releases refused to work, had for weeks now. But the surface was too smooth; I couldn't get a grip on it. The life-sign monitors started sending me one alert after another as I scrambled for some sort of grip. My breathing picked up, my heart rate shot through the roof, and adrenaline started to flood my system. I could have told it what was happening; I was panicking.  
  
"Lady," barked a sharp voice, cutting through the panic and fear to reach the part of me that was still capable of thinking. "Slow down, breathe. Having a panic attack won't get you out of this suit." With anybody else, it would have been one of the worst things I could have heard. But I trusted Adam, even as a program that had taken up residence in the local network. He was my commander, the only one I'd ever take willingly. I had to trust him. If he said I had to calm down, I'd calm down.  
  
Surprisingly enough, it worked. I still felt trapped, but I could think enough to realize that he was right; that panicking wouldn't solve anything.  
  
"I need out," I said softly. "I can take the cell, but this is too much for me, Adam."  
  
"They're trying to find some way to get you out, Lady," he said, his voice coming down from the sharp, commanding tone he'd used a moment before, to a more soothing one. "You know that. You also know that your best bet for ever getting out of this cell is that they don't find a way, at least not soon."  
  
"I hate you when you're right," I muttered. "I still can't take this anymore. I've been breathing recycled oxygen and living off the suit's bio- reserves since I was fused with this thing."  
  
"Samus, if they find a way to get you out, they'll hit you with the *book* for destroying the station and SR388." That got my attention. He almost never used my name, not since I'd managed to wake up his personality, hidden beneath layers of protocol routines the Federation had programmed into him after backing up his personality "Your only defense, at this point, is that you have proof they were breeding metroids, and they can't afford for that to get out. If they find some way to remove your recording unit from your body, they'll destroy it, and all the evidence that's keeping you alive."  
  
"Maybe I'd be better off dead," I said, staring at my reflection on the inside of my visor. My face was mostly undamaged, actually. The suit didn't interface with it directly, like it did with the rest of my body. The X-Parasites hadn't bonded me to it. If they had. I would have gone completely insane, no question about it, instead of just being on the way there. My head was about the only thing I *could* move independently of my suit.  
  
"Bullshit," Adam growled, almost menacingly. I looked up reflexively, as he continued over my suit's audio system. "What the *hell* makes you think that? They *will* find some way to get you out eventually, and when that happens you'll be able to move on with your life the way you always did. Just stick together until the heat from the B.S.L. incident's off, and then they won't try to destroy you at the same time they save you."  
  
"What the hell do you know? Damn it, Adam, I'm a fucking *machine* as much as I am a person now!" I knew it was a mistake as soon as I said it, but it was too late. The silence that followed was the worst part.  
  
"Then maybe we're both better off dead, by that logic," Adam said after the agonizing moments. "At least you have the option to get out eventually. You're still human, Lady."  
  
"Haven't been human since I was five," I muttered. "Adam, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I meant.damn it, you might be a program, but at least you're still *you* in there!"  
  
"And you're not?"  
  
".I don't think so," I said softly. "Not anymore. I'm not a human anymore, Adam, not even as much as I was before. I'm some sort of part- human, part-chozo, part-*metroid* cyborg now. I'm an abomination," I sighed. My breath condensed on my visor, before being cleared away almost immediately. "A monster."  
  
"Part chozo," he asked, the confusion in his tone obvious.  
  
"It's a long story," I muttered. "About a lifetime of long."  
  
"It's not like we've got anywhere to go," he said, chuckling slightly. "I'm up for it."  
  
"But I'm not," I pointed out. "It still hurts too much."  
  
"It's about what you did before you became a hunter, isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah," I nodded. "A different life. A happy one."  
  
"You want some time to yourself?" I nodded a mute response, a tear trickling down my cheek. I almost welcomed the feeling, something so patently alive. "I'm going to go scout out the local network some more, see how things are progressing. I'll be watching your life-signs; if you have another of those attacks, I'll be back here to kick your ass across the cell." I chuckled slightly at that.  
  
"You're definitely Adam Malkovitch," I sighed, shaking my head a little.  
  
"Of course I am. I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you. Any objections, Lady?"  
  
"None, sir." I couldn't help but smile a little. He probably knew it'd happen, too, the bastard. You've got to love somebody like that, no matter how much you want to hate them.  
  
"Good." Without warning, he cut out, no signs of his leaving, or even of having been there. Leaving me alone to think, while he tried to find out how badly the bureaucrats wanted my head.  
  
The only reason they hadn't already hauled me up on trial was because I'd disobeyed orders. I was supposed to destroy the security robot, and leave immediately. Instead, I was forced to take an indirect route on my return. I'd seen B.S.L.'s illegal metroid breeding program, and there was no way they could have gotten away with it without the Federation knowing.  
  
Metroids were still feared by the public, and if I had invoked the laws of the Galactic Federation, they would have *had* to broadcast my trial. Giving me plenty of opportunity to tell people what had been happening, and the mission-recording mechanisms in my armor were all the proof I would need to cause rioting, if not overt revolution. Their only two choices, at this point, would be to let me go, or to hold me here forever. And even if they could find a way to brand me a traitor, the public wouldn't believe it. I've been fighting the space pirates for as long as I've been a bounty hunter, as far as they know, the idea that I would be working for them.. It was laughably idiotic.  
  
Hell, anybody who tried to suggest it to me would find themselves in a hospital very quickly. Assuming I didn't put them in a mortuary instead. The idea that anybody would think I was working for the fucking butchers who killed my family..  
  
I sighed and rolled over on my cot, my power suit whirring quietly. I decided to take a small gamble, and started the maintenance cycle on it. I'd been almost afraid to do it before, never quite sure what the effect would be on my body, but I knew the various filters needed to be cleaned soon. Besides, it would give me time to think, and be sure I couldn't get violent in the interval. I had to move my suit with my own strength during maintenance, and the power was cut down to life support alone. The only safe way to think about this; about the time before I had the suit. I always wound up either a ball of tears, or a raging menace. But I needed to think about it, to try and put things in perspective.  
  
"What would you think of me now, Old Bird," I sighed, thinking back to my mentor among the chozo. "Would you pity me, even if you'd never say it? Or would you think it my due, for my failures?" The chozo had always valued life above all else; life, knowledge, tranquility, and love. The four corners of chozo philosophy. And I've followed them, and the teachings of the chozo, for most of my life. But there's one thing I've never been able to get rid of. The greatest sin a chozo could commit.  
  
Hatred.  
  
No matter how the chozo tried, no matter how hard *you* tried, Old Bird, you never managed to rid me of my hate. Of the burning visions of my nightmares, of my parents being slaughtered by the space pirates. Of the atrocities they committed, the evils they spread. Pain, suffering, violence.. All things the chozo abhorred. And, yet, even as you trained me to destroy them, you always cautioned me against hating them. I was not avenging those they had slain; I was stopping them from harming others.  
  
You were too late though; I already hated them, long before you taught me not to. Is that why this has happened to me? Punishment for never being able to truly become what I was meant to be? Chozo weapons and armor, used to further the lust for vengeance.. Old Bird, if you had seen me on Zebes, or on Tallon IV, you would have wept. The only pirates I left alive were the ones I didn't have time to slaughter. The only ones I killed, the ones who were shooting at me.  
  
The others I left to die from the injuries they sustained during the crash, and when their phazon-infused monstrosities broke loose.  
  
Strange, how I never really thought of this before. Just filed it away as doing my job, and let it be. Have I always been this way? Why didn't you *see* what I was?  
  
Or did you? "It is better that a single life be taken, than a thousand lost. Better to destroy a murderer, than to let him kill again." Simple words, used to justify a moral dilemma more complicated than any the chozo had dealt with in centuries. It was better to train a killer to destroy the pirates, and stop them from killing even more, than to let them continue their pillaging unchecked. You chose me because no chozo could find the heart to raise arms against another sentient being. Was that because of my hatred? I know humans who were as insistent that they wouldn't fight as the chozo were, sometimes even more. There was something about me, something that made me endure the pain, the training, everything involved in becoming the Hunter.  
  
Thinking back, was it ever something besides hate? Was I ever anything more than a killing machine?  
  
And now I'm fused with the very machine you built for me. Infused with the genes of a creature I nearly drove to extinction, for money and 'for the good of the Federation.' And because the metroids were linked intimately in my mind with the space pirates, and the destruction of the chozo. Fighting them on Zebes, and on Tallon IV, I forgot that they were just animals the space pirates had warped for their own uses. The Metroid Prime was sure as hell intelligent enough. But cunning, like the metroids have always had in spades, has never been the same as malevolence. I forgot that, and they became an ally of the space pirates, instead of a tool of them.  
  
I only really snapped out of it when the infant imprinted on me. For once in my life, I saw pure innocence in something I had come to think was pure evil. I couldn't bring myself to kill it too, and maybe that saved a part of my soul. When Mother Brain killed it.. I don't think any teachings could have stopped me then. Was that what you meant, what you had seen when you wrote about my rage being such a terrible thing to behold? You told me about how the chozo could peer through the veil of time, tried to teach me the skill. Even managed it, to a limited degree; my reflexes are still a split-second faster than anybody else's because of that skill. So many times in my life, you could have been speaking of me. But never more truly than when I fought the Mother Brain that last time. I cried after I got off Zebes, after the planet was rubble behind my ship. In part, because I mourned for the young metroid, giving its life to save mine, but mostly because I was terrified of what I had become.  
  
And now, I'm here. A shattered wreck of a human, trapped for the rest of her natural life in a walking tomb. Hell, I'm not even a wreck of a human. It's like I told Adam; I haven't been human since you and the others realized I needed chozo genes to be able to wield chozo technology. And now I have metroid blood as well, if you can call it that.  
  
Is there anything left of the little girl you saw, and thought was worthy of becoming the Hunter?  
  
~~~Meanwhile, across the galaxy..~~~  
  
How long has it been, Samus, since the last time we danced? Three years? Five? It can't have been longer than that.  
  
You really did a number on me, Samus. Almost killed me, with those damned statues. I'll have to return the favor, the next time we meet. Three times we've danced, and three times you've won. But that was before my ascension. On Zebes, you fought me, and you won. Here, on Tallon IV, the same happened, but you needed your precious chozo spirits to help you. Again on Zebes, but you were only fighting an imperfect copy of my original form.  
  
Not really me.  
  
Oh, how I will enjoy changing your winning streak. Beating you down, ripping out your heart and feasting on your body. But not until I've exacted my revenge for every inconvenience, every ounce of pain you and your chozo have caused me. Not until I've made you beg for death, and pay me a dear price for its release.  
  
One of the gamma pirates is coming in with a report now. If only you had seen them, Samus; you would have been very proud of yourself. After losing the Metroid Prime, and the rest of our phazon operations.. And especially after losing Mother Brain again.... They almost shattered. You *almost* beat us. Centuries of selective breeding, training, and research, down the proverbial drain.  
  
Then, a ray of light, of hope, appeared. Promise that the ascension Pirate Command had dreamed of *was* possible. And not through the twisted metamorphosis Mother Brain underwent. Rather, ascension could be achieve through power, and through judicial use of the proper phazon strains. The Elite and Omega pirates were *nothing* compared to what was possible.. And you exposed it for us. Exposed it in your hunt for the Great Worm.  
  
If only you knew what you had unleashed.. How, after you detonated the crater, and brought that damnable temple crashing down on your head, I dug my way through until I had reached the red phazon that not even the Metroid Prime could stomach..  
  
If only you knew how much I owe you, dear Samus.. You would slit your wrists in despair of the monster you created.  
  
"Report," I said crisply, sharply, the very model of the new Space Pirate Commander. A position I have longed for since Mother Brain took control of our Commanders.  
  
"Sir, reports indicate that the planet's phazon reserves will be exhausted within a hectacycle." I turned my head to look at him, and see how he was behaving, having delivered this news. I've been told that I cut a very imposing figure now, larger than before, my armor plates reinforced with phazon-infused plates, my eyes smoldering with the raw energy stored within me..  
  
Fortunately for him, he was already cowering when those smoldering eyes fell on him. The last pirate who hadn't been smart enough to expect my displeasure found out just how foolish it was to rely on my better nature.  
  
And painful.  
  
He was tasty, though.  
  
"And?" The pirate's eyes flashed in my dim chamber as he blinked at me. Clearly, he hadn't been expecting to live much longer than it took for me to catch him. Still, I doubted that he had come down here without *some* sort of good news. It wasn't like I couldn't still catch him if he had.  
  
"Well, Sir, the scientific team has finally finished Operation Origin," he said, trying to sound excited, though the result was more a sickly, hopeful excitement, as he realized he might get out of this alive. "They were able to account for various astronomical phenomena during the last twenty-five years, take into account the original depth and angle of the meteorite impact, and determine the trajectory is probably traveled along. It is possible that we will be able to track this path back to the original sector of space the phazon came from; possible a sector where a virtually limitless supply is waiting for us!"  
  
I smiled slightly, a deep, rumbling chuckle filling the chamber as I stood, unfurling my wings.  
  
"Take work to the commanders," I ordered the relieved gamma. "Mining operations are to be stepped up until we have stripped this planet of phazon. We will then leave to trace this source. All research projects, save Operation Origin, are to be reduced to maintenance levels until further notice. Our phazon supply is to be maintained as long as possible. I will personally see to the disciplinary actions taken against *any* pirate who disobeys or interferes with operations. Understood?"  
  
"Yes, Sir!"  
  
"Good. Now go." The pirate loped off, practically using his arm-blade for a vault to move faster as he went to deliver the news. Eager to please. I like that in a toady.  
  
Tell me, Samus.. Do you think you'll be able to handle us now? 


End file.
